Tongues of the type in question are already known and it is also known that they consist of a front portion made of rigid material, such as plastic for example, intended to engage with the internal wall of the boot, a padded portion being applied to the rear of said front portion and being intended to engage with the user's leg, in particular with the shin and zone surrounding it.
In this way, when the boot is put on, its flaps close over each other, being secured by the usual clamping levers, and the front flaps of the anatomical liner correspondingly move towards each other, the said liner being arranged inside the boot into which the user inserts his/her foot, the instep of which is duly enclosed by the aforementioned flaps which partially overlap the abovementioned tongue.
Tongues of the conventional type, while performing in a satisfactory manner the function assigned to them, i.e. principally that of protecting the user's shin, nevertheless possess drawbacks which mean that they are not yet entirely reliable or satisfactory in terms of their use.
The abovementioned drawbacks are all due to the fact these tongues consist of a single-piece body in which the padded part is fixed completely to the rigid portion, so that their thickness remains that established by the manufacturer. A common experience in the area of ordinary footwear as well, is that frequently two persons will ask for the same model of shoe and the same size, but whereas the shoe will fit one person perfectly, it may cause considerable problems for the other person such that he or she will discard that particular type of shoe.
In fact the two abovementioned parameters are not determining factors at all when choosing a shoe since the shape of foot may vary considerably from one person to another.
The abovementioned drawbacks obviously also occur in the case of ski-boots and in fact they are accentuated precisely on account of the particularly use of this type of footwear, i.e. mainly for competitive purposes where the foot is subjected to a considerable amount of stress so that the boot must not be uncomfortable at all for the wearer and at the same time must possess good stability characteristics.
A tongue for the anatomical liner of a rigid-shell ski-boot which is able to overcome all of the abovementioned drawbacks has now been devised and forms the subject of the present invention.
It is therefore one of the main aims of the present invention to provide a tongue as defined above, the particular and original design of which enables its thickness to be modified according to the shape of the user's foot, in particular the zone in the region of the shin.
Another not insignificant aim of the present invention is to provide a tongue of the type in question as a result of which the modifications referred to above may be performed by the user him/herself according to the specific requirements which may arise in each case when using the boot.